11.2.14

ABBA – A GOLDEN LEGACY, Part 1

This
is the first half of the introduction to the matching folio of printed sheet music to Abba Gold that I was asked to write in 2008, slightly
amended for the blog. Part 2 tomorrow.

Abba
Gold
is among the best-selling albums in the history of popular music, up there with
Thriller and Dark Side Of The Moon, the jewel in the crown of Abba’s
diamond-encrusted catalogue. Originally released in 1992, it brings together 19
of the group’s classic hits and is one of those rare collections that returns
to the best-selling lists on a regular basis as new fans discover Abba, in recent years the result of the smash hit musical Mamma Mia! and the accompanying film that was released in
2008.

Time
does not diminish Abba. While the four individuals that made up the group long
ago ceased collective endeavour, the music they made together transcends eras
and fashion, and has now become a solid gold template for new generations that
seek to create pop music at its highest level. ‘Dancing Queen’ is probably the
greatest party anthem ever recorded, while ‘The Winner Takes It All’ is
regularly cited as the supreme melodic statement about broken relationships.

These
two songs were released during Abba’s golden era, which extended from the
mid-seventies to early eighties, but it had taken the four musicians more than
a decade to reach this level of finesse. In their home country of Sweden, the
individual members of the group had embarked on separate careers during the
sixties, coming together in 1972 under the patronage of Polar Music, a
Stockholm-based record label and music publishing company run by Swedish
impresario Stig Anderson.

Until
this time guitarist Björn Ulvaeus was part of the folk group The Hootenanny
Singers, while keyboard player Benny Andersson was a member of the pop group
The Hep Stars. Both were among Sweden’s top acts at the time, and when Björn
first met Benny in June 1966 there developed a close friendship that would
eventually grow into an outstanding songwriting partnership. By the end of the
decade, The Hep Stars had split up and The Hootenanny Singers were more or less
a studio act at Polar Music. In the summer of 1971, Stig Anderson offered Björn
the job of house producer, and Björn insisted that Benny be hired as well.

Two years earlier, in 1969, Björn and Benny both happened
to strike up romantic relationships with singers. Benny met and fell for
Norwegian-born Anni-Frid Lyngstad, also known as Frida, while a romance
blossomed between Björn and Agnetha (pronounced Ann-yetta) Fältskog. Both girls
were former dance band singers who had launched solo careers. By the spring of
1970, both couples were engaged.

There was a good deal of experimenting in the studio before
Abba was born. Björn and Benny recorded together and wrote songs for others,
while Frida and Agnetha continued their domestic solo careers with mixed
fortunes as well as performing back-up duties in the studio. Björn and Benny’s
real ambition was to record English-language songs that would reach beyond
Sweden, and in this regard Stig Anderson, whose ambition was matched only by his
diligence, was unusually supportive.

Björn and Benny were well aware of their own shortcomings as
singers and couldn’t help noticing that the local hits became a bit bigger
whenever they invited their fiancées to contribute backing vocals. After a
minor hit in Japan with the English-language ‘She’s My Kind Of Girl’, Björn and
Benny felt sufficiently encouraged to record more English pop songs to which
Frida and Agnetha were asked to contribute. Finally, on the 1972 song ’People
Need Love’, the girls shared the lead vocals equally with the men, and the
result was the very first Abba single, although the quartet was credited as
Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid.

Thus
it was that six years after Björn and Benny first started working together they
and their romantic partners finally decided to become permanent members of a
group with the acronym-inspired name of Abba, which would be managed by Stig
Anderson. Even so, it wasn’t until the end of 1975, 18 months after their
breakthrough with ‘Waterloo’, that the group finally became the musical
priority for the individual members.

‘Waterloo’
alerted the world at large to Abba, winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest,
held that year in Brighton. In many respects, winning Eurovision was a poisoned
chalice, since few hitherto unknown winners from continental Europe had enjoyed
anything like sustained international careers in music. However, the song
contained many elements that lifted it beyond the typical Eurovision winner –
it was a full-tilt rocker, delivered in the style of classic girl-group pop and
produced with a nod to Phil Spector’s magnificent Wall of Sound – and anyone
with ears could tell that this group of Swedes had it in them to survive
Eurovision’s reputation for creating one-hit wonders and consigning them to
oblivion.

In
the event global success was almost two years away, partly because it took them
a while to overcome the stigma of Eurovision but also because Abba had decided
not to rush things, but to work painstakingly on their songs and sound in the
studio with engineer Michael Tretow until they were 100% satisfied with the
result. In the long term this far-sighted strategy, this scrupulous attention
to quality control, was as responsible as anything in ensuring that several
decades after it was recorded Abba’s music would remain as popular as it does.

‘Waterloo’
reached number one in the UK charts and several other European countries in
April 1974 but Abba had to wait until September of the following year before
‘SOS’ became their next big hit. In doing so it opened the floodgates. Between
February 1977 and December 1981, the group enjoyed 17 top five hits in the UK
alone, including eight number ones, all but one of which are included on Abba Gold. It was a chart run of
dazzling proportions that in terms of quality and consistency over a similar
period remains virtually unmatched.